Opening of The School Year Mass

This afternoon I joined a large number of priest faculty and students, and Archbishop Donald Wuerl, in concelebrating Catholic University's Opening of School Year Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine. The Mass was televised live on EWTN and was followed the annual University Picnic.

The Liturgy was very well attended by the faculty and students of the University who filled the nave pews. After Communion, CUA's incoming President, John Garvey gave an excellent address about the nature of a Catholic University.

Among other things he said that . . .

"The Incarnation is centrally important – to our salvation, of course; but also to our faith; and (more selfishly and closer to home) to the intellectual life of the University. Jesus tells us who God is, how He loves us, and what He wants from us. If we believe in him, then the Gospel is as relevant to the work of the university as the general theory of relativity is to the work of the physics department.

But the Gospel is not just the special concern of the School of Theology and Religious Studies. In my own field of law, our belief in the Gospel affects the way we think about our relationship to the environment; our obligations to immigrant populations; the forms and limits of criminal punishment; the construction and support of families; and our care for the unborn and the dying.

Or think about the English department. Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor express a very Catholic vision of the world in post-war Southern fiction. Annie Dillard gives us a modern understanding of the message of Ecclesiastes in "For the Time Being." And Dana Gioia, one of our best modern poets and (would that this happened more often) chairman of National Endowment for the Arts for six years, writes that 'the Catholic, literally from birth, when he or she is baptized, is raised in a culture that understands symbols and signs. And it also trains you in understanding the relationship between the visible and the invisible. Consequently, allegory finds its greatest realization in Catholic artists like Dante.'"

(Photo Credits: The Catholic University of America)

Given that, even at Catholic colleges and universities, English departments today are largely wastelands of post-Christian secularism, I was pleased that President Garvey focused on these examples - and he quoted a Laetare Medal winner to boot!

After Mass, Father Terry Ehrman, C.S.C. (who is finishing up his doctorate in theology here at CUA) and I introduced ourselves and congratulated our fellow Domer on his appointment as President. He's already off to a great start.